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The race for tech talent isn’t a marathon, it’s a sprint

The race for tech talent isn’t a marathon, it’s a sprint

A recent survey from Accenture Strategy reveals that CIOs believe they need to win the war for talent to secure a competitive advantage. Not only must they find workers with the right skills, they need to find them fast.

CIOs must build a strong technology workforce in 2016. Those who pick up the pace to attract and retain top talent will be best positioned to shape a workforce with the skills required for the future.

The reason as noted in the Accenture Technology Vision 2016: “Winners in the digital age do much more than tick off a checklist of technology capabilities. They know their success hinges on people.” Furthermore, “the real deciding factor in the era of intelligence will be a company’s ability to evolve its corporate culture to not only take advantage of emerging technologies, but also, critically, embrace the new business strategies that those technologies drive.”

It will be no small feat, and the CIO’s team will play a key role in helping the business make the culture change and rapidly adopt the right technology. That fact is not lost on companies. More than 85 percent of the organizations surveyed for Accenture Strategy believe they need to win the war for talent to secure a competitive advantage, and nearly 60 percent believe the biggest challenge their IT organization faces is having workers with the right skills.

Suffice it to say this will be a hotly contested race for talent that is in high demand. CIOs must take steps to overcome the hurdles that could otherwise hold them back.

Yesterday’s talent doesn’t fit tomorrow’s business needs

Sourcing the talent needed for the future won’t be easy, according to a majority of business leaders surveyed (80 percent) for Accenture Strategy. Not only are skilled IT workers difficult to find, their skills may be mismatched for future requirements in a digital era. More than 80 percent of those surveyed believe the workers they hired five years ago are not the workers they need now.

To address the skills gap, CIOs must reimagine their workforce based on their future needs, recognizing the need for humans and machines to do more together. To that end, they will need to establish a plan to acquire the skills that will help them reap the benefits of human talent and intelligent technology working side by side. Options include upskilling the current workforce or going outside the organization to recruit the talent that is required. Both methods are essential, given the difficulty of achieving the requisite workforce to drive the future of technology and to enable the two to work together.

CIOs also may need to take additional steps and think more creatively about how to staff for the future as the labor market continues to change. Through emerging workforce options, such as crowdsourcing, labor can be hired on demand to handle the ebb and flow of the workload and shifting needs for specific skills.

IT and the business are in a tug-of-war for technology talent

As the lines between business and technology blur in today’s digital world, the business and functional areas (e.g. marketing and operations) are increasingly focused on digital innovation and solutions. They hire digital and technology talent to create solutions, leading to larger footprints of technology workers outside of the traditional IT organization. More than half of Accenture Strategy survey respondents (55 percent) said that some technology work is performed outside of the IT organization.

In response, CIOs should consider collaborating with business leaders to manage technology talent across the enterprise. The IT organization should stand out as a strategic, innovative arm of the business—not just a back-office function. Changing ingrained perceptions about IT requires CIOs to concentrate on business-focused technology.

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